Chapter Twenty-Three

Your hands reached for the nearest door panel. The light flashed red with an annoying deep beep as it denied you entry. Panicked stricken thoughts filled your mind. The Sandarians are coming for you, they are here now and are coming. Each passing second they get closer, maybe they are on the ship even now! You claw at your throat as it feels like your lungs stopped working. You swing your hand out smacking the wall trying to place your palm on the next reader, again it flashes red. Leaning on the wall, the cold seeped into your burning shoulder, your vision pulsed. Slowly you crawl along the wall to the third door and weakly pound on it with what you hoped sounded like urgency.

“What’s...happening…”

The door swooshed open and you stumbled forward into a very hard and very muscular chest. Your eyes dart up and you see the behemoth from earlier in the hallway that checked you and Helena out. His face started to melt away, his skin peeling off like a snake shedding, under his bronzed skin, dark green scales replaced were hiding underneath. Stumbling backwards your back hit the wall with a jarring thud. Everything in the immediate area started to melt away, the white halls changed to rustic metal much like your prison. Like a chameleon the man became a Sandarian. Fear gripped your heart and squeezed, your knees wobbled on unsteady legs. The halls on both ends grew darker as the shadows reached with their venomous fingers, reaching for you, to claim you, to take you back.

“Sandarian!!” You barely croak through your dry lips, your parched throat. Stumbling along the wall away from the Sandarian you twisted and ran as fast as you could down the hall. You have to find Helena and warn her! Sandarians are on Titanus!

“Hey! Wait!” The Sandarian called out.

Your feet stopped moving as you stumbled forward to a halt. Looking back you glare daggers at the slug. Sandarians can talk!? No! You tell yourself, it’s a trick. You can’t give in! You can’t be lured in and captured again. You can’t! Even now, that loneliness, that desperation you felt when you were held captured filled your thoughts, holding your heart under water.

Turning the next corridor you came across more Sandarians!? “What’s ...what’s going on?” You exclaim in fear. A group of Sandarians stood before you, a mass of green as one of them steps forward away from the pack. “Are you ok?” It asks, attempting to trick you.

The Sandarians took a step towards you. Why are there so many on board!?

“Have we been boarded!?”

“Boarded?” One of them asks in confusion. How can you understand them. Did they do something to you while you were unconscious?

The sandarians share a look among themselves. A clawed hand reaches out to you.

“Get away you slug!! Pulling your first back you launched it into the Sandarians face. After hearing his howl you turned in place and shuffled back the way you came...except the behemoth from before is blocking your escape!

“No!!!” Falling backwards onto the floor, you scoot back away from the monstrous beast. Spinning your head all you saw are Sandarians!!

“Get away from me!!” Reaching down you grabbed the nearest thing you could find, a plate?

“Shit, shit, shit!”

“Nel? Are you ok?” A soft voice came from the midst of the invading force.

“Wha!? Stay away!” You wield the plate like a deadly blade. Ready to shove the damn thing in the first Sandarian who comes near.

“What’s happening!? Nel,talk to me sweetheart?” A smaller Sandarian stepped forward with a worried expression. Sandarians show emotion?

The room spun as more and more Sandarians filled the hall. There was no longer any escape. You were blocked and you have no weapon...that can get you out of this.

“Why….are..” Felt like you were being held under water. You were drowning on the inside, you couldn't escape this fear, you can’t escape your fate it seems. The icy fingers of your fears tore at your mind as it dragged you down into the depths of darkness.

“You need to breathe, Nel!” The small Sandarian with the worried expression stopped your head from hitting the floor. It held you carefully with it’s clawed hands, pulling you close so your head was tucked close to it. It smelled faintly familiar.

“Doctor!!” The monster called out. You’re becoming increasingly afraid that they did something to you. Staring up at the creatures' open and fearful expression your fight or flight response kicked in as you refused to be captured again, you’d rather die fighting than be captured.

“Why...Sandarians...everywhere….how” You squeezed between shallow breaths.

“Shit! She’s having a lapse!”

You push the Sandarian holding away and jump to your feet, swaying once you stand catching one of the Sandarians trying to grab you. Dodging his outstretched claws, you punch him in the side of the head, knocking your attacker flat. Another stepped towards you with an angry grunt, his claws swiping at you as you danced between their outstretched limbs as they tried to grab hold of you and pin you down. Ducking low sweeping your leg out you swept the Sandarian of its feet.

“Nel! Stop it!” The smaller once came forward again, palms up in no doubt a fake gesture of peace.

Snarling at it you throw your fists up, “I didn’t escape just to get captured again!!” The peaceful looking Sandarian must have had enough as it grabbed your left arm. Anger fueled you as you retaliated with a right hook, except this Sandarian is a lot faster than the others and blocked your fist with it’s hand, inches from impact.

“Nel, it’s Helena!!” The attacker yells at you in anxious concern. When you heard the name of your best friend and hopefully lover you stalled, catching you off guard.

“Hel---” The Sandarian holding your fist melted like wax in a furnace, melting away, like a heavy fog being lifted, your vision cleared from it’s poisonous visions.

“Helena?” You were desperate, desperate to be free, desperate to be safe. Desperate to be with Helena again and drive your nightmares and demons away.

“Shhh” she cooed softly as she took you in her arms bringing you down to the floor, holding you tightly in her arms.

“Helena..Sandarians are...on...the ship. They're everywhere…” Your warning was ghostly frail. Your voice faltered, never finishing your warning. Along with your failing voice, your vision blurred and dissolved into nothingness. The metal walls disappeared, the Sandarians disappeared and Helena, the shapeshifted holding you vanished, leaving you totally and utterly alone in the darkness that came to swallow you whole.